Food Inc. Potluck April 21st.

Food Inc. is being broadcast on PBS April 21st (check your local listings). I thought PCF could take this opportunity to come together, have a potluck and learn about the hidden agendas of "Agri-business."


The topic addressed in this documentary has become a passion of mine. I can never read and absorb enough information on the hidden agendas of the grocery lobby; it has almost become an obsession. I'd like to share that obsession with 
A PCF group viewing of Food Inc with potluck is a great opportunity to again highlight the importance of nutrition and how it fuels our bodies for fitness.

• Who is willing to host the potluck?
• Everyone must bring a dish to the potluck. It does not have to be homemade but it MUST be prepared with locally and ethically sourced products. 
• Please use this forum to express any ideas about the potluck

For those who have not heard of Food Inc, here is a little synopsis on the documentary:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Recipe for Ground -Turkey (which was used for the lettuce wraps on Friday night)

Recipe for Ground -Turkey (which was used for the lettuce wraps on Friday night)
This is for 2-3 people (I say 2):
Ingridients:
1 lb of ground turkey
One medium size onion- chopped
3 table spoons of olive oil
One cup of celery sticks- chopped
One cup of carrots- chopped
2/3 cup of walnuts, small pieces
4-5 cloves of garlic- chopped
1 tea spoon of cumin
1 table spoon of red pepper (not spicy. I would be happy to get this for you, from a mediterrenian market)
1 table spoon of tomatoe paste
1 table spoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 cup of warm water
Lets cook it:
Chop the medium size onion and fry it with the 3 table spoons of olive oil until the onions start turning brown, on medium heat
Add black pepper to the onion
Then immediately after, add the 1 lb of ground turkey
Add the garlic
Make sure the turkey, black pepper, garlic and onions are well mixed (2 minutes)- At this point, you can increase the heat to high-medium.
Add the tomatoe paste, cumin, red pepper, warm water and mix well (again, for another 2 minutes)- this is where I start making sure that the ground turkey mixes very well with all these ingridients and form into small pieces.
When the dish starts boiling, or very hot, then lower the heat to medium.
Cover, and let it cook for 6-8 minutes.
Once the meat is 60% cooked (which should be after 8 minutes), then add the celery and carrots. You add the celery and carrots towards the end, so that they stay crunchy. They don't need to be cooked all the way.
Cover it, lover the heat to medium-low (not very low, tough). Continue cooking until you feel like the turkey is done. I say, for another 8-10 minutes.
Once the meat is coooked throughly, turn the heat off, add the walnuts and mix well. Cover, take it off the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Enjoy, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.


Watch this video symposium Here

Coconut Oil on the brain

The benefits of coconut based products are coming to light with the advent of the recent backlash to the anti-saturated fat campaign of the past 3 decades. Coconut was lumped into the High-Fat category and deemed a caloric bomb. The campaign against high fat lead Americans on a a lowfat/high carb diet... which bring us to today where our obesity figures are staggering and the onset of Type 2 diabetes for both adults and children is commonplace.  Fats are a necessary component of our diet and  helps nutrient absorption, nerve transmission, and maintaining cell membrane integrity--- for Crossfitters this is especially important for muscle repair and lubrication of joints.  Coconut oil is a good fat. It can be used for all cooking applications, and lends to a richer, nuttier flavor to most dishes. 




Published in the Weston A. Price Foundation

The Latest Studies on Coconut Oil

By Mary G. Enig, PhD

One of the very useful oils in the food supply comes from the coconut. Coconut oil has suffered from unjust criticism for more than 30 years in the United States because some of the governmental and food oil organizations, as well as consumer activist organizations such as Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), have claimed that coconut oil as a "saturated fat" is shown to be atherogenic. This is not true.

There is a variety of supportive research published in 2003, 2004, and 2005, which shows the importance of coconut oil. Also, information on coconut oil is currently coming into the research literature from numerous countries, including India, Norway, Iran and the United States.

The following are some of the most recent studies showing the benefits of coconut oil. These studies contradict claims that coconut oil contributes to heart disease and also support earlier research showing an antimicrobial role for the fatty acids in this traditional fat.

BENEFICIAL FOR HEART DISEASE

Recent research contradicts claims that coconut oil causes atherosclerosis and heart disease. In a study published in Clinical Biochemistry, 2004,¹ researchers looked at coconut oil as a component of diet in laboratory animals (Sprague-Dawley rats). In this study, virgin coconut oil, which was obtained by wet process, had a beneficial effect in lowering total cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids and low density lipoproteins (LDL). The effects were uniformly beneficial. In serum and tissues, very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol levels were lowered and HDL-cholesterol was increased. The polyphenol fraction of virgin coconut oil was also found to prevent in vitro LDL-oxidation. We know that oxidized cholesterol can initiate the process of atherosclerosis—the fatty acids in coconut oil prevent this oxidation. The results in this study were interpreted as due to the biologically active polyphenol components present in the oil.

LOWERS LP(A)

Another study dealing with lipoproteins and cholesterol was carried out in women. Researchers found that coconut oil-based diets lowered post-prandial tissue plasminogen activator and lipoprotein (a).² Lp(a) is a blood marker that is a much more accurate indication of proneness to heart attack than cholesterol levels. Researchers had believed that levels of Lp(a) were unaffected by various forms of dietary fat intake. However, in this study, Lp(a) was lowered when the subjects consumed a high-saturated fat diet and somewhat lowered when they consumed a slightly lowered-saturated fat diet. The saturated fat used in both of these diets was coconut oil. The control diet was based on a monounsaturated oil.

POISON ANTIDOTE

One of the more interesting uses of coconut oil found in the human toxicology literature involves the beneficial use of coconut oil as a successful treatment for acute aluminium phosphide poisoning. This poison is used to control pests in grain storage facilities where it functions as a poisonous gas, namely phosphine gas, which is a mitochondrial poison. There is no known antidote for aluminium phosphide. The patient described in this case study survived following rapid treatment which included taking baking soda and coconut oil, as well as supportive care, and it was concluded that coconut oil had a significant use as an added part of the treatment protocol in this type of poisoning.³

ANTI-MICROBIAL

A few researchers have known for some time that a derivative of coconut oil, lauric acid and monolaurin, are safe antimicrobial agents that can either kill completely or stop the growth of some of the most dangerous viruses and bacteria. Many bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics but herbal oils such as the oils of oregano and the major fatty acid from coconut oil, lauric acid, which the body turns into the monoglyceride, monolaurin, are showing great promise as anti-bacterial and anti-viral agents. Monolaurin, in particular, is being shown to be useful in the prevention and treatment of severe bacterial infections, especially those that are difficult to treat or are antibiotic resistant. Difficult bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus as well as other bacteria have been studied here in the United States in research groups such as Dr. H.G. Preuss’s group at Georgetown University. They found that monolaurin combined with herbal essential oils inhibited pathogenic bacteria both in the petri dish (in vitro) and also in mice (in vivo).⁴

If you are interested in using Coconut oil for your daily food applications please email me at Lauren@sweetassassin.com. Crossfitters' price is $8 per 16oz jar. Organic Virgin Coconut Oil.